July Dairy Cow Slaughter Down A Hair

USDA reports this morning that 2,000 fewer dairy cows were sent to slaughter in Federally inspected plants in July compared to a year ago. A total of 226,000 cows were culled last month.

However, that’s 12,000 more cows than were culled in June 2010. Year-to-date, some 1.595 million cows have been hamburgered. That’s 78,000 head fewer than a year ago, a drop of 4.7%. The full report can be found here.

The July culling numbers likely don’t reflect many Cooperative Working Together cows that were accepted into the 10th round of herd retirements. The first of those 194 herds (with nearly 35,000 cows) were inspected in mid-July, and they then had 15 days to sell cows to slaughter.